


Guilty by Association

by DianaSkye



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Age Difference, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, F/M, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Infidelity, Rare Pairings, Sexual Content, Sirius Black Lives, generally questionable morality, technically also Ginny Weasley/Harry Potter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-11
Updated: 2020-12-28
Packaged: 2021-03-10 21:40:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 14,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28014096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DianaSkye/pseuds/DianaSkye
Summary: Sirius Black knows what it’s like to make bad choices. He’s been making them his whole life. But his godson’s girlfriend? That might be a new low. Sirius lives AU.
Relationships: Sirius Black/Ginny Weasley
Comments: 31
Kudos: 31





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文-普通话 國語 available: [罪孽组合](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29099103) by [LucyAragorn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LucyAragorn/pseuds/LucyAragorn)



Sirius Black is sitting at a grungy muggle bar in East London, waving down the bartender to get a third refill of his whisky. He hates the stuff, but it's better than nothing, and tonight he's not up to going to a place where he can get a proper firewhisky.

He's been talking to a woman, he still is technically, though he's not actually listening to a word she's saying. He thinks her name is something like Sherry or Cheryl, but it could honestly be Rebecca for all he knows. He figures he'll have a couple more drinks, and when he's properly wasted, he'll fuck her in the bathroom and never see her again.

Sherry/Cheryl/Rebecca is about his age, so early forties. She's blond, but probably not naturally so. She either thinks he hasn't noticed the line on her left hand from where she's taken off a wedding ring, or she knows he's noticed and she doesn't care.

"So anyway, I mostly work in the modern art division now, but I hope to get back into antiquities within the next couple of years. When you take time off for kids, your career's just never what it used to be…" she trails off, registering for the first time that he's not paying attention. "What do you do again?" she asks him.

He likes the use of "again". He obviously hasn't told her, but she's being polite, pretending that they've known each other for longer than 15 minutes. Pretending that they don't both know exactly how this night's going to go. The politeness makes everything much more palatable.

"I sell motorcycles," he says. It's not a lie.

"Oh really? How fascinating! What kind?"

"Used ones. Mostly Harley's." There's the lie. He sells flying motorbikes that he designs himself, but he can't tell Sherry/Cheryl/Rebecca that.

"I've always thought they were so cool. If only I weren't too scared to ever ride one!" She laughs, high-pitched and grating.

He wonders how long they'll do the conversation thing, seeing as that's not why either of them are there. He appreciates the politeness, but he has his limits.

Sirius hasn't always been this much of an asshole.

When he was at Hogwarts, he'd been a decent kid. Okay, so he and James had been pretty awful bullies sometimes, and okay, they'd done a lot of illegal magic, but they'd never seriously hurt anyone.

Another lie.

Of course they'd hurt people.

Snape, for one.

Peter, for another. _Fucking Peter._ Years of neglect, demeaning comments, and stringing him along had directly led to James and Lily's deaths and his own twelve-year imprisonment. He hadn't even realized at the time how cruel they'd all been to him, probably because they'd loved him tremendously. You never think you could hurt someone you love so much without even trying.

That was slim consolation. He'd been a terrible bully and a worse friend, and he hadn't even meant to be.

It had come naturally to him.

Sirius takes a long sip of his drink. He's getting near the bottom of yet another glass, and he's telling Sherry/Cheryl/Rebecca a half-true story about the time he had to fish his motorbike out of a river. He's told this story enough times that he doesn't really have to think about it. It's a funny story, and he uses the laughter as an excuse to lean a little closer and touch a hand to her upper arm.

Maybe Sirius has always been an asshole, but he hasn't always been this bad — this calculating, this disrespectful, this selfish.

He's always been terrible at relationships. Even as a teenager, he'd had issues with commitment, intimacy, communication, a bad temper… Back then, he'd blamed his mother for all of it.

These days, he still blames his mother, definitely, but he also blames two wars, the deaths of all his closest friends, and twelve years of his soul being slowly consumed by demon prison guards.

He's read that trauma can fuck with your sense of morality. Or something like that.

Anyway, the point is, he knows he's become a force for pain and destruction in the world. He thinks it's probably too late for him to change now, so he just tries to limit the damage, contain the fallout.

That's why he comes to muggle bars. If he's going to do terrible things like sleep with other people's wives whose names he hasn't even bothered to learn, then he can at least have the decency to do it where he won't run into anyone he knows. Where he won't have a chance to hurt anyone he loves.

He downs the rest of his drink, signals for another one. That's the other reason he comes to muggle bars. He doesn't like to drink at home, not where Harry can see him, but not drinking is not an option.

Because he needs to cover the pain with something. All the losses he's suffered, all the nightmares he still has, the fact that every awful thing that's ever happened to him has been entirely his own fault — it becomes unbearable. Literally too much to bear. Too much to feel.

So he covers the pain in a two-step process:

It starts with emptiness, from alcohol. He drinks until he feels nothing.

It ends in pleasure, from sex. He fucks until he feels something other than pain — something good, even for just a moment.

He recognizes that this is all incredibly unhealthy. And yet he keeps doing it, because if he doesn't, he's not sure how else he'll cope. If he doesn't do this, he doesn't know how he'll keep getting up in the morning.

For now, he and Sherry/Cheryl/Rebecca are still going through the motions. The flirting's a bit more direct now, the touches lingering little longer. He brushes a piece of hair behind her ear and leans in close.

"Could I get a whisky, please?" says someone who's standing just to the other side of him.

Sirius freezes. He knows that voice.

"Make it a double," she adds as an afterthought.

For a moment, he considers staying where he is, not turning his head, and hoping she goes away. But he's curious. He has to know if it's really her.

So he turns around.

"Ginny?" he blurts, at the same time as she says, "Sirius?"

They look at each other. She has this stunned, guilty expression on her face, like a wolf caught in the moonlight. Her mouth hangs open, just a little.

He thinks that he should say something, make a joke or ease the tension somehow, but then he realizes that Sherry/Cheryl/Rebecca is still lingering on his other side, watching everything.

"I'm sorry, er —" he starts, turning towards her again.

"Natalie." _Huh._

"Right, Natalie, of course," he says, flashing his signature apology smile. The McGonagall Melter, James had once called it. "I'm so sorry, but I've just run into an old friend, so, um…"

"Don't worry about it! It was lovely to meet you." She takes her drink and stands, patting him on the arm as she goes. Her friendly tone is slightly undermined by the furrow in her brow. She looks as if she's trying to understand how the twenty-year-old red-head standing at the bar could qualify as an "old friend" to someone like Sirius. It's not an unfair question.

Ginny drapers her jacket over the back of Natalie's chair and sits down. "You didn't have to tell her to leave, you know."

"Meh," Sirius says noncommittally. "It's not a big deal. We just met."

"Really? You seemed so close to me," she says, sarcasm in her voice, mouth twisting up into a smirk. Her hair looks darker in the dim light of the bar than usual. More auburn than Weasley red.

Sirius makes an indistinct grunting noise. "What are you doing here, anyway?"

"Having a drink."

_"Here?"_

"I fancied a change of scenery." She shrugs airily. She gives him a look that says _I know you know I'm lying, and I don't care._

She downs the remaining half of her drink in a single swallow and waves for the bartender.

"Bad day or something?" Sirius pesters her.

"Or something," she agrees.

They drink in silence for a moment. Sirius is well and truly drunk now, and he doesn't know where to go from here. He and Ginny rarely talk; he can't think what to say to her.

So he ends up telling her the same story he just told Sherry/Cheryl/Rebecca - or, whoops, Natalie. He tells the entire story this time, magical details and all, about how when he was nineteen, two weeks after getting his first bike working, he had to swerve to avoid a hot-air-balloon full of muggles. He ended up in a river.

His levitation spell wasn't powerful enough through the water, so he called James to come help him get the bike out. James showed up with a canoe, just carrying it on his back when he apparated in. Sirius still didn't know where the canoe had come from.

It was hilarious at the time, and Ginny laughs in all the right places when he tells her about it.

"Do you miss it?" she asks.

"What, falling into rivers?"

"Back then, before the first war. Do you still miss it?"

"Every day. I miss it every day, of course I do. James, Lily, Remus, fucking Peter, my damn brother Regulus." He may miss them, but there are still certain names he can't say without the preface of a swear word. "They all could have had such good lives. I could've had a good life. I miss imagining a future other than _this_." He gestures broadly.

He hears how bitter he sounds when he says it. His honesty is surprising, even to himself, but in the moment he doesn't regret being open. It feels good to talk about it, for once.

"So it never goes away?" she asks. "I keep thinking it will one day. That someday I'll stop wondering what could have been and just accept it."

He shakes his head. She swallows more of her whisky and he watches her throat as it goes down.

"Tell me about it," he says.

"What?"

"Your bad day or something."

She sighs. "It's nothing. It's just that…" She shakes her head. "It's nothing. It's stupid."

"It's clearly not nothing."

She glares at him. She downs the rest of her glass. Then she talks.

"Fine. It's all exactly like I thought it would be, okay? I got everything I ever wanted. Harry, playing for the Harpies… My life is bloody perfect."

"So the problem is…?"

"I think I'm supposed to be happy."

"And you're not?"

"And I'm not," she agrees.

"Well, if it makes you feel any better, I haven't been happy for twenty-one years."

She stares at him through the sides of her eyes, sizing him up.

"That's longer than I've been alive. So, no. That does not make me feel better."

He laughs. "Fair point. But you didn't get your brain rotted by dementors for over a decade, so probably you still have a chance. Or something."

"Or something," she echoes. Sirius notices for the first time that Ginny's black dress has lace detailing along the neckline.

"Ginny, why are you here, really?"

She shrugs. For a moment he thinks she's going to avoid the question like she did earlier, but then she says quietly, looking at her glass, "Same reason you are, probably."

At first he doesn't get it. Then he thinks _she_ doesn't get it. Then he thinks of course she does, she's not an idiot, but he still needs to clarify, so he asks. "You do know why I'm here, right? You saw me talking to that woman?"

"I did see you talking to that woman."

"So… you're saying… you were here to meet someone? For…"

"Maybe. Yes. No. I don't know," she says. "Yes, maybe."

He finds he's too drunk to deal with all this vagueness and suggestion. So he just says it. "If I hadn't been here, you'd be cheating on Harry right now? Unless you two broke up and he didn't tell me about it."

"We didn't break up."

"That's not an answer to my question."

"Isn't it?" She looks him in the eye defiantly when she says it.

"Well, fuck. I guess it is."

Sirius, yet again, does not know where to go from here. She keeps surprising him.

"Am I a terrible person?" she asks.

"You're a better person than me."

She shakes her head. "I don't know about that."

"Any terrible thing you've done, believe me, I've done it at least twice."

"So I have time then," she says darkly, and they both laugh a little.

If either of them had anything left in their glasses, they'd both be taking a sip, but as it is, they're all empty. Instead, Ginny does another surprising thing.

She kisses him.

He starts to pull away, to say _stop, we can't do this, we're drunk, this is wrong, we'll regret this,_ but then he tastes whisky and peaches on her mouth, and all he can think about is the lace on her dress and how her hair looks in this light, and he forgets to stop.

He's still forgetting when a minute later she stands and whispers in his ear. "Take me somewhere."

He'll realize later that she probably meant somewhere nice, somewhere away from here, but right now he's drunk and so he just takes her to the bathroom. He throws some money down on the counter of the bar and takes her hand. Sirius pulls her through the loud, dense crowd and they find their way to a tiny, dimly lit, single-stall bathroom.

The door closes behind them and he presses her into it, one arm wrapped around her lower back and the other bracing himself against the frame. Then he kisses her.

She links her hands behind his neck as if to trap him against her, pull him closer.

There's an earnestness to the way she's kissing him. Maybe it's the youth, or maybe it's the whisky, but her mouth on his feels honest. Optimistic. And Sirius is a die-hard pessimist, but even he feels a little bit hopeful.

He thinks for a second about Harry, and how even though he's seen the absolute worst of the world, his godson is one of the most optimistic people he's ever known. Maybe that optimism is something he shares with Ginny.

It's enough of a reminder of the situation that Sirius inches his mouth away from hers for half a second.

"We shouldn't do this," he says, but by the time he's finished speaking his mouth is already back on hers.

"I know," she responds, but she doesn't stop.

He slips his hand lower down her back and keeps going. He feels her shudder a bit as he pauses over her backside, digs his fingers in. She arches her hips further against him, and he slides a hand under her skirt. He spreads his fingers wide over the back of her thigh, desperate to touch as much of her as he can, and she hitches her leg up, wrapping it around his.

They're pressed so close together now that he knows she can feel him. He wants her to. Wants her to know how hard he is for her.

He has the wild thought, as they fumble against the door, that he may be an asshole, and a terrible person, and destined for hell, but maybe he's not alone. Maybe he'll see her in hell someday.

Ginny touches a hand gently to his stomach, too gently, so gently that he can barely feel it, yet he feels it in his entire body. It's too much for him. Too tender. He pulls her urgently away from the back of the door, still locked together, and angles her toward the sink.

She gets what he's going for and hops up onto the counter. She wraps her legs around his waist and threads her fingers into his long hair. She pushes his head down a little, taking charge.

Sirius presses his lips against her collarbone, runs his tongue over the hollow of her throat. Her skin tastes warm, salty and sweaty.

He pulls at the fabric of her dress, folds away the cups of her strapless bra, steals a moment to look. And fuck, she's perfect. Not that there's really such a thing as imperfect when it comes to breasts, but still. Perfect.

He feels unexpectedly nervous as he brings his mouth to her nipple, because all of a sudden this feels real. They're really doing this and he wants it to be good, wants it to be right, even though that's an impossible goal, since this is entirely wrong. It's all wrong, wrong for so many reasons he can't even list them all, but at this moment the actual impossible goal would be to find it in himself to care about a single one of those reasons.

Because at this moment his mouth is on Ginny Weasley's tit and she's gripping her hand tighter into his hair and she's letting out a soft little moan and it's incredible. _It's all fucking incredible._

He bites down gently and she whimpers.

Sirius needs to kiss her again. When he does, it's a spectacular, open-mouthed, tongue-heavy kiss, and he hopes he's conveying to her what he's feeling, which is: _everything._

Everything is not enough.

He pulls away and grins at her, flicking his eyes downward, asking for permission.

Ginny grins back, biting her lip, and he crouches down, putting his head between her legs. Her dress has already ridden up around her hips, and she shifts her weight on the sink, helping him as he takes off her knickers.

He takes a good look and the view is fucking spectacular. Not just what's between her legs, though that is — like the rest of her — perfect. But everything, the way her hair's come loose, and her makeup's smudged, and her dress is all askew, covering nothing.

He puts his mouth on her and tastes what he hadn't realized he's been longing for since she sat down next to him at the bar. He laps at the folds of her cunt and swirls his tongue around and slips it inside her. He replaces his tongue with a finger, then two, and he loves the way she flexes around him, drawing him further into her.

He works his tongue over her clit and he works his fingers inside her, and he hears her moan as she digs her hand into his hair again, gripping tightly. It's the prettiest sound, and he wants to make her sound like that again and again.

Sirius is good at this. He's had lots of practice. He's done this a thousand times with dozens of women, and he knows what he's doing. But also, he's never done this before, because it's never been _Ginny_ before.

This is fresh and new and exciting and amazing and holy shit her body is convulsing under him. Her hips buck and she comes so hard she practically falls off the counter.

He's looking up at her right after, so he sees the exact moment her blankly blissful expression changes to panic.

"Oh my god, what just happened?" She's standing up and fumbling around, straightening her dress. "This can't happen, this can't be happening."

Sirius takes a few steps back, putting distance between them, as reality crashes into the room.

"Ginny, I — " he begins, but he doesn't actually know what to say, so he just leaves the sentence hanging.

"Where are my fucking underwear?" she says, a hint of hysteria in her voice.

He vaguely remembers throwing them to the left when he took them off, so he looks in that direction. He finds them and passes them to her.

"Thanks," she says softly, looking absolutely stricken. He places a hand on her shoulder, trying to be comforting, but she flinches away from him.

"I'm sorry," he says. "Fuck, I'm sorry. You're right, this shouldn't have happened." And he is sorry. This shouldn't have happened.

"And it never did," she says firmly, grabbing her bag and heading for the door. "I have to go."

She opens the door and practically runs out of the room. He watches as she rummages, probably looking for her wand. He knows that as soon as she rounds the corner, she'll apparate as far away from him as she can get.

Sirius closes the bathroom door and leans against it, right where Ginny was mere minutes ago. This is the problem he has with feeling. Feeling good doesn't last. One minute he was feeling better than he can ever remember feeling, and the next he's here. 'Here' being standing in a dirty bathroom in a muggle bar, having just gone down on his godson's girlfriend, who is, by the way, half his age. Oh, and also he's just betrayed Harry, who is literally the only person in the world that matters to him.

Eventually, Sirius disapparates. He goes straight from the bathroom into his bedroom and collapses onto the bed, but he doesn't sleep. Instead, he lays awake, staring at the ceiling, ashamed of how he can't stop thinking about Ginny and the way she looked when he was crouched between her legs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaand that's chapter one! 
> 
> Title inspired by the song _Lethal Combination_ by The Wombats.
> 
> As ever, I'd love to know what you think, so please leave a comment below! You can also find me on [tumblr.](https://diana-skye.tumblr.com/)
> 
> See you back here next Friday for Chapter 2!


	2. Chapter 2

The next time Sirius sees Ginny, she's in his kitchen. It's two days after the night at the bar and now she's here.

His kitchen is also Harry's kitchen, so it's not weird for her to be here. It's not weird for her to spend the night with Harry. It's not weird for her to stay for breakfast or for Sirius to see her. Except, of course, for the numerous ways in which it is weird, today, specifically.

"Hi," she says from where she's sitting at the long wooden table that takes up most of the Grimmauld place kitchen.

"Hi," he responds, his eyes trained slightly to the left of her face. He's making a beeline for the coffeepot, just for something to do. He almost knocks over a chair in the process, the same one his cousin Tonks used to knock over all the time. He remembers Ginny laughing at that. She would've been, like, fourteen or something at the time. Merlin.

"Er, Harry's just getting dressed for work. He, uh, should be back any minute."

"Right."

He's about to pour his coffee, but he doesn't actually have a mug. He summons one from the cabinet across the room and naturally it hits Ginny in the head on its way over to him.

"Ow!"

"Shit," he mutters. "Are you alright?"

He's inexplicably rushing towards her, as if the gentle tap with the mug could have produced a life-threatening injury.

"I'm fine, Sirius," she says.

He nods stiffly and edges away from her, his face reddening with embarrassment.

Then she starts laughing. "I can't believe you hit me with a mug."

He laughs too, and they spend a moment on the cusp of hysteria.

"I'm sorry," he says, desisting, "for everything."

"Me too," she says, looking at the floor. "It was my fault, I shouldn't've… It was a momentary lapse. I won't do — anything like that again."

"It wasn't just your fault," he says. He's trying to make her feel better, doesn't want her to shoulder the blame alone, but for some reason he can't identify he leans closer to her as he says it. They're breathing the same air now, standing closer together than they have any right to be standing in the light of day.

"Morning, Sirius," Harry says casually as he strolls into the room.

Sirius and Ginny jump apart at the sound of his voice, like they've both been hit with electric-shock charms.

There is a too-long pause.

"Er, good morning," Ginny says meekly.

Harry furrows his brow and glances between them, from where he's still standing in the doorway. "I've already seen you this morning, Gin."

"Well, Sirius didn't say anything, and I thought somebody should."

"You're both being weird."

"No, we're not!" Sirius says, hurriedly and sharply and without permission from his brain, saying the exact thing someone being weird would say.

Harry's brow furrows even more, his eyes narrowing. Abruptly, he softens. "Oh, I see what's going on here," he says, heading towards the floo. He plants a quick kiss on Ginny's lips as he passes her. "Well, I'm off then. See you tonight."

Sirius just stares at his godson, confused as fuck.

"Oh, by the way, I liked that cake with the treacle icing they had at that Harpies party last month. Just so you know." Harry winks and disappears through the floo.

"What the fuck?" Sirius says when he's gone.

Ginny groans. "Harry's birthday is next week."

"And?"

Ginny groans louder. "He thinks we're planning him a party."

"Oh." Sirius supposes that's better than Harry knowing the truth, but it's still not ideal. "What are we going to do?"

"Plan a fucking birthday party." Ginny's looking at him like he's a moron, which, to be fair, he is.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A week later, Sirius is standing in the same spot in his kitchen, but this time there's a party going on around him. It's a good party, Ginny did a great job with it.

The official line, if anyone were to ask, is that he and Ginny planned this party together, through conspiratorial early morning kitchen conversations. In actuality, Sirius's only contributions were holding the party at his house and procuring the copious amounts of alcohol set up on the kitchen counter, most of which he intends to consume himself. The rest of the planning — including finding the weird treacle cake — was all Ginny.

Everyone's here — Harry's school friends, the entire Weasley family, Harry's colleagues at the auror office, a few Hollyhead Harpies players, the odd former Order member. There was a time when Sirius knew all the people in Harry's life. Now, he knows maybe half these people, but it's nice to see. Sirius had known that people would always love Harry as their hero, but he's glad to know that Harry's found so many people who don't just love him, they like him too.

"So. Picture this: Encourage-mints. They're like breath-mints but they tell you your hair looks good."

George Weasley has appeared at his elbow, holding a pumpkin juice and wearing a bright orange t-shirt. Between his hair, the shirt, and the juice, it's a lot of orange.

"I love it. Tell me everything," Sirius says instantly.

George gives him the full explanation, and Sirius thinks it's a great idea, honestly. Stupid, but great.

He's become friends with George over the last three years since he opened up his bike shop just a couple doors down from Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes. George was his first customer, actually. He told him he'd always wanted a motorbike like Sirius's, though he was a fan of all flying vehicles, really.

Since then, they've seen more of each other. They have the odd lunch in Diagon, occasionally catch a quidditch game after work. They talk business and quidditch mostly, it's nothing much really, but it's something he thinks both of them needed three years ago. And still need now, though George is doing much better than he was.

He quit drinking about a year ago, something Sirius has never managed to do. Never really tried to do, if he's honest. Or wanted to do.

George wanders off with a promise that he'll bring an Encourage-mint prototype to the Harpies' game later that week, which Sirius has said he'll join him at.

Sirius ventures out of the kitchen, figuring he should be a good host and actually talk to more than one of his guests. Both the upstairs and downstairs drawing rooms are packed with people, and for a moment Sirius ponders just packing up and moving to another house, because seriously, who needs two fucking drawing rooms, but then he notices Harry and Ginny standing together and all other thoughts disappear.

Harry's arm is wrapped around her waist and she's laughing at something he's said, leaning into him. They're standing with a group of their friends from school and they look perfectly happy. They look like they fit — both with each other and within their group, and he can tell that Ginny loves him. There's an ease and a comfort to the way she's standing with Harry, looking at him like she _knows_ him, totally relaxed in his arms.

If Sirius didn't know better, he'd think they were the perfect couple. He _had_ thought that until just over a week ago, and watching them now, he can't quite believe that last week at the bar really happened.

Looking at the two of them together makes Sirius a bit sick to his stomach. Partly because of the guilt at his role in coming between the beautiful young couple standing in front of him, but mostly because he now knows that this pretty picture is a lie.

Maybe not a complete lie, since that level of ease and comfort and _fit_ can't be entirely faked — at least he doesn't think it can — but it's hard enough to watch that he goes to mingle in the other drawing room where he won't have to look at it.

Apparently, there is a reason to have two drawing rooms, if you're as fucked up as Sirius Black.

A while later, sometime around midnight, when the party is quieting but not yet quiet, Sirius goes upstairs. He's just going to the bathroom, but he also needs a break. He's very drunk, but there's not enough alcohol in the world to make social gatherings bearable for too long.

The door is closed, which is a surprise since this is the upstairs bathroom right across the hall from his bedroom. He waits for a minute, pacing outside the door, but he is fundamentally an impatient person, so he knocks.

Or, rather, he goes to knock, but before his fist meets the door, the door flies open and someone comes barreling out of the room, almost crashing into his chest.

It's Ginny, because _of course it fucking is._ Literally who else could it be in Sirius's tragically absurd life.

"Christ," she mutters, her exit blocked by Sirius, who for some unidentifiable reason is standing stupidly still. Her face is puffy, eyes bloodshot, and she looks like she's just redone her makeup.

"Is everything alright?"

"Bloody perfect," she says, trying to push past him.

He starts to let her go, but he grabs her wrist and pulls her back around to face him.

"Hey, did something happen? You can tell me, you know."

She gives him the saddest half-smile in the world. "Tonight was perfect. Harry was so happy."

"And?"

"And I thought about how I could spend the rest of my life making Harry happy." Her voice catches and stutters. "And then I had to come up here because I couldn't breathe."

Sirius desperately wants to hold her, so he does. He wraps his arms around her and she presses her face into his chest.

When Ginny raises her head, she looks him in the eye, but doesn't back away. She lets him keep holding her.

"I love him," she says. "I really do. I love him so much."

"I know you do."

"I don't think it's normal to have panic attacks when you think about spending the rest of your life with the person you love."

"I lost track of what normal is a long time ago."

He wipes off a bit of mascara smudged under her eye with his thumb.

She closes her eyes and leans ever-so-slightly against where his hand touches her face.

"I have to get back," she says.

Sirius nods and lets her go.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

After the party, things go back to normal. Mostly.

Sirius goes to work, and he comes home. He goes to a couple quidditch games with George, has lunch with his cousin Andromeda and her grandson — who's looking more and more like Remus all the time, except with purple hair. He sees Harry for dinner most nights and breakfast most mornings. Sometimes Ginny's at his house, but he's never alone with her and they've gotten better at remembering what normal was like, how they used to talk to each other. Polite, friendly, detached.

Sirius still drinks too much. He still goes to muggle bars. He's still not okay.

On September 1, there's a wedding. Ron and Hermione are getting married at the Burrow, eleven years to the day after they first met. Harry and Ginny are the best man and the maid of honour. Sirius is also present.

The ceremony is all twinkling lights and white flowers and _love_ and _faithful souls_ and _bonded for life_. It's nice, sort of. It's the kind of thing that's impossible not to be at least a little bit moved by. The tiniest bit of hope for his cynical, pessimistic heart.

The reception is lovely as well, though it involves a lot of small-talk and dancing, neither of which Sirius particularly enjoys. He does enjoy an open bar however, so at least there's that.

Sometime late in the evening, Sirius slips out of the large tent on the Burrow's lawn, intending to just stop for a moment of air. He stands on the grass, tinted blue with the darkness, and breathes deeply as he looks up at the sky.

It's a full moon tonight. That used to mean everything to him, but now it doesn't matter at all.

Now, the moon is just the moon.

Another version of himself is tearing through the woods, running on four legs, chasing after a wolf and a stag, with a rat clinging to the fur on his back.

He's the only one left now. The moon is just the moon and Sirius is alone.

He walks away from the tent, heading toward the house for no other reason than that it's the first destination he sees. He has to get away from it - away from the tent full of happy people who aren't alone, who don't understand the specific aching in his chest that comes from being the only one left.

Sirius goes in through the mudroom door and weaves his way past the heaps of wedding preparation detritus, before sinking down into the living room couch. He heaves his way through one or two dry, racking sobs. He doesn't have it in him to cry actual tears, not again, not anymore.

He sits there in the dark, hiding. From the moon and from the wedding guests with their small talk and dancing and happiness. He wishes he could hide from the memories. He wishes that he'd thought to bring a bottle of firewhisky with him from the tent, because this is too much feeling and he wants to make it stop.

Sirius doesn't know how long he sits there, but at some point a light gets flicked on and Ginny is there. Just standing in the newly illuminated living room, holding a bottle of firewhisky and glaring at him through puffy eyes.

"Why is it always you?" she says accusingly, a hand on her hip.

"Me?" He's being intentionally obtuse. He knows what she means, obviously. He does seem to have a newfound knack for being in the places she tries to escape to.

"Yes, you. What the fuck are you even doing here?"

"Same as you, probably."

"And what am I doing, exactly?"

"Hiding." He pats the spot on the sofa next to him. "Hide with me for a minute. And pass me that."

She does, handing him the bottle of firewhisky as she flops down next to him, her long periwinkle dress fanning out over the floor. He takes a long swig from the bottle and passes it back to her. She does the same.

"What are you hiding from?" she asks him.

"Oh, you know, happy people. The moon."

"The moon?"

"It's full tonight."

She doesn't ask him to elaborate. Instead, she rolls her eyes and says, "Fucking happy people." They share a laugh and take another swig each from the bottle. "They keep asking me if Harry and I will be the next to get married."

"Harry looked just like James did when he got married, standing up there in his dress robes."

"I mean, I'm only twenty-one! And I have a career!"

"I was supposed to be a best man only once, you know. I was James's, James was going to be Remus's and Remus would be Peter's. Peter was supposed to be mine. James died before Remus got married, so I had to be his. Then he fucking died too. "

He takes an extra large sip of firewhisky before passing the bottle back to Ginny.

"Why do people think my relationship is their business? And why is Harry so fucking fine with it?"

"He's twenty-two. Older than James ever was."

"I think he's going to propose." Quieter, now. She's looking down at her hands.

"I would have liked to have gotten married, I think."

"I'm not sure I'll be able to say no when he does. I — don't know if I even want to say no. I don't want to say yes either, but what other option is there?"

"I'd be a terrible husband, I'm sure. Probably a good thing no poor witch is stuck with me."

He recognizes the absurdity of them having two separate conversations at once, talking near each other, instead of with each other. But he doesn't think he would have said half of this if she'd been asking questions, responding, making eye contact — any of the normal conversational features.

"Does it get easier?" she asks, after they run out of separate things to say. "Faking it?"

"It's easy to do, if that's what you mean. It's not difficult to act like a professional, well-adjusted, normal person during the hours of the day when I need to."

"That's not really what I mean," she says. "I'm already good at pretending."

"That you are," he acknowledges. "I had no idea until — I knew. But, no. It doesn't stop being exhausting."

He looks at her, finally. She's already looking at him, and their eyes meet.

"Give me the firewhisky," she sighs.

She drinks for a long moment and when she's done, she slides closer to him on the couch. She rests her hand on top of his, gently. Strokes her fingers in a delicate pattern. He freezes.

"I don't want to fake it anymore tonight," she says. Her voice is quiet, but steady, dripping with authority and certainty.

He stares at her for just a second. "Fuck it," he mutters, then crashes his lips against hers.

Her lips part, and he puts himself between them. His lips, his tongue, his mouth, he puts everything into the kiss. It's like he's drowning and she's saving him.

Like he's dying of thirst and she's a fountain of clear water.

He slides a hand over the edge of her dress and comes to rest in the valley of her waist. She shifts towards him so she's half straddling him, one knee between his thighs. Ginny strokes a hand over his lower abdomen, causing him to shudder and grip even tighter to where he's holding her hair.

She runs her hand lower, stroking him through his trousers. He lets out a low groan and kisses her even harder.

"Hold on," she says, pulling away and grinning wickedly as she wraps her hands around both his wrists. The next moment they're bending through space.

She's apparated them to a bedroom. It's dark, but the window is open and there's enough light from the full moon that he can tell that the room contains a neatly made single bed, a cluttered bookshelf, and barely enough room to stand up. The walls are plastered with quidditch posters and Gryffindor colours.

"My old room," she says in explanation.

They had stumbled apart on landing the apparition, but now he takes a step towards her and she does the same, closing the gap. Their movements are slow. Deliberate. Where before they were falling blindly into each other, now they're choosing this.

This is no accident, no mistake, no trick of alcohol and misery. He wants this. She wants this. They're doing this terrible thing together, on purpose.

They kiss again, slower and softer than before. Everything around them is still. Silent, but for the sound of their lips pushing against each other and pulling apart.

She eases his outer robes off his shoulders and lets them fall to the floor. Then, she untucks his shirt from his trousers and he watches, his forehead pressed against hers, as she undoes the buttons, one by one. Her breaths are hot and fast against his face.

He shrugs out of his shirt and spins her around so her back is pressed against his front. He allows his hands to roam over her body and grope at her breasts through the rich fabric of her dress. He presses his lips just below her ear and works his way down her neck, licking and sucking and biting.

He's gentle. He does nothing that would leave a mark.

She keens at his touch and presses her hips back against him. He unzips her dress and slides the straps from her shoulders, letting it pool on the floor.

Ginny turns around and backs towards the bed, dragging him with her. They lose the rest of their clothing and she lies on her back. He follows, brushing a strand of hair off her face as he settles over her and presses his mouth to hers.

They stay locked in a deep kiss as he sinks smoothly into her.

The sex is deep and slow, all longing and quiet desperation. There's nothing in the world but the way she feels, the sounds of her delicate gasps and fervent moans, the way her face looks in the moonlight when she comes, head rolling back against the mattress.

He loses himself completely as he spills inside her, his fist clutched desperately around a wad of sheets.

It's only after, when the pleasure is starting to wane, that he remembers that this wasn't allowed. It had been like they were just two people, a man and a woman, but actually, they're two people who should never have been together.

Sirius clings to that feeling as he kisses Ginny one last time, still connected to her for one final, aching moment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading! Please leave a comment (I love comments!) or connect with me on [tumblr](https://diana-skye.tumblr.com/)
> 
> Next update coming earlier than planned, on Tuesday! (because I apparently don't know how to read a calendar and didn't realize next Friday is Christmas! And this story, uh, seems somehow wrong for a Christmas day release lol)


	3. Chapter 3

That should have been the ending.

There are a few days when Sirius thinks it was. He thinks they got it out of their systems, this desperate rebellion against their own happiness.

He should know better than that by now. He should know that his capacity for fucking things up is endless.

But he's an idiot, so he genuinely believes it's over and that everything will be fine.

This belief persists until the next time he sees Ginny.

She shows up at his shop in the middle of a Tuesday. She looks so normal in the light of day, like any other customer, dressed in jeans and a Harpies t-shirt.

She says she wants to buy a bike, that she's always wanted one and today's the day.

"Why today?"

"I just came from Mum's. She says I should be more responsible."

"I see."

"Yeah, well, it was do something irresponsible or hex my own mother, so. Here we are."

"Here we are," he echoes softly, pointing her towards the motorbikes he thinks she'll like best.

He goes over the specifications of each model, talks her through the pros and cons. It's his standard sales pitch. He does nothing unprofessional or untoward.

Ginny chooses the smallest model. Though, size is no guarantee of power, and the smallest is also the fastest.

He brings her to his office to sign the paperwork, like he does with every other customer. But his office is private, no windows out to the street like the main shop, and the next thing Sirius knows, they're rushing into each other and he ends up fucking her over his desk.

She leaves without signing the paperwork.

Which means she comes back.

On her second visit to the shop, two good things happen.

First, she signs the paperwork, meaning that Sirius makes a sale.

Second, she gives him a blow-job in his office chair, meaning that Sirius fulfills a fantasy he's had ever since he got an office.

"So, when are you going to teach me to fly that thing?" she asks afterwards, sitting on his desk and watching him button his trousers.

"Er — I mean, I don't normally teach customers to fly… It's quite straightforward if you can fly a broom. Just an extra on-switch and a levitation pedal —"

"But I'm not a normal customer, am I?" she says, standing and pressing her lips against his neck. "Or do you do _that_ with all your customers?"

"Of course not, but I don't —" He sighs. "Do you want me to take you flying?"

"Yes."

He shakes his head a little, but feels a smirk twitching at the corner of his mouth. "Saturday morning?"

"It's a date."

* * *

This is stupid.

Sirius is pacing around his shop on his day off, on a day he's not even _open_. He's waiting for Ginny. His godson's girlfriend. In the daylight. On a public street. On a fucking _Saturday._

Sirius is not just a depressed middle-aged asshole with a survivor's guilt complex, he's a _stupid_ depressed middle-aged asshole with a survivor's guilt complex.

He used to be quite smart, he recalls. Developed the Marauder's Map at 14. Became an animagus at 15. It's all been downhill from there.

He refuses to look at the front windows. Anticipation and nervousness bubbles inside him and, seriously, he cannot look.

If he were a rational, normal human being, he'd be nervous about getting caught, about the ramifications for his relationship with Harry, and possibly about dying in a magical motorcycling accident.

But, naturally, what he's actually worried about is, like, impressing a girl? Clearly, he is neither rational nor normal.

Though, if he were, he wouldn't be in this situation in the first place.

"Why are you walking into the corner?" That's the first thing Ginny says when she comes through the door, so things are off to a brilliant start.

"I —" he sputters for a second, spinning around, then gives up and ignores the question. "Hi."

"Hey," she says, looking like she's smothering a laugh. "Do you want to get going, then?"

"Right, sure, of course." He points towards the bike Ginny bought. "That one's yours."

"I know which bike I bought, Sirius." She's laughing openly at him now.

"Right, sure, of course." He swears he used to know how to speak in full sentences.

She goes over to her bike and gives it another look, stroking a hand adoringly over the clutch. "Hello, you," he hears her murmur to it. More loudly, she asks, "How do I — get it out of the shop?"

"I'd probably levitate it, if I were you."

"Oh. Obviously." She blushes a little, and it's his turn to smother a laugh.

She pulls out her wand and starts sending her bike resolutely towards the door. He stops her before she gets there.

"One thing before we go." He looks around, makes sure there's no one outside the shop, and kisses her. It's light and easy - a morning kiss. She leans towards him, a palm on his chest, lingering for just a moment.

"Mm," she says when she pulls away. "Thanks for reminding me."

"Anytime, love."

When they're outside, they keep their distance. She gets on her bike and he gets on his, which was parked out front. He reviews what he told her yesterday about what all the controls do. She listens patiently, but he gets the sense that she's humouring him.

The second he's finished, before he can even start his own bike, she takes off roaring down the street, soaring into the air when she picks up enough speed. More speed than necessary, honestly.

He doesn't catch up until she's settled in the air, flying in easy circles.

"What took you so long?" she yells when he's within shouting distance, then she takes off again.

She seems to be flying with a purpose, which is unexpected. He thought they were just going for a flight around the neighbourhood so she could get a feel for the bike, but it seems she has other plans. Ginny never ceases to surprise him.

They soar over the countryside for a while. Ginny slows down enough that he can pull up alongside her, and they ride together in easy silence.

The world always looks so still and peaceful from up here — from the air, from a distance. Sirius has the thought that if he flew more often, he might make fewer bad decisions. He could do with a little more stillness and peace in his life.

But, before he gets to any of that, he has to continue the bad decision currently in progress.

Ginny slows, and dips lower to the ground as they pass a small village. He recognizes the area as being close to the Burrow — all hills and greenery and wildflowers. She seems to spot what she's looking for and takes a sharp dive that he scrambles to follow.

She lands cleanly and effortlessly — which is mildly infuriating seeing as Sirius landed his first motorbike sideways and/or in a river for the first six months he had it — in a meadow. It's secluded and quiet, surrounded by a thin layer of trees on three sides and a marshy pond on the other.

She gets off the bike and promptly flops down on the grass, just lies down with her face up towards the warm autumn sun. Her eyes are closed as she smiles radiantly and breathes deeply. Sirius sits cautiously next to her.

"Lie down," she says without opening her eyes.

He does. He lays so they're close but not touching, and he too closes his eyes, letting the sun kiss his face.

"See, isn't that better?" she says. It is. He doesn't think he's lied in the grass since before he went to Azkaban. So, when he was Ginny's age. He should lie in the grass more often.

"How did you like the bike?"

"It was fucking amazing." He can hear the smile in her voice.

"I thought as much," he laughs. "You were a natural up there."

"I don't know why you ever do anything else but fly."

"I was wondering that myself," he says. "It's peaceful in the air, but thrilling at the same time." He pauses for a moment and turns to look at her. "Kind of like being here with you."

She's biting her lip and grinning when she looks back at him. He inches closer to her in the grass and they kiss, slowly and gently. Languidly. It's not a kiss that's going anywhere, it's just a kiss that is.

They lie in the grass for ages, alternating between kissing, and talking, and basking quietly in the sun.

"What is this place?" he asks at one point, drawing circles on her palm as they hold hands in the grass.

"I used to come here when I was a kid," she says. "It's close to the Burrow."

"I thought it must be."

"Fred brought me the first time. He and George used to come and play here. That day was one of the only ones I ever spent with just Fred. He and George were always a package deal, but I think Mum had George doing extra chores that day for some reason, so Fred was stuck playing with just me. We built a fort or something, I don't remember, really. I was only eight, I think. But it was a good day."

Sirius brings their clasped hands to his face and presses a kiss to the back of hers.

"The twins and I came here a lot the summer I turned twelve," she continues. "After Tom Riddle and the diary. Mum wouldn't let me go anywhere alone, but when we got here Fred and George would go play near the pond or fly around on their brooms and I would lie in the grass, just like this. They were the only ones who understood that I needed to be alone, who didn't fuss around and try to protect me constantly. They just let me lie in the grass."

"George is a good man," Sirius says quietly. "A good friend. I wish I'd known Fred better."

"They looked up to you, you know. When they were teenagers. The Great Sirius Black, who created that map and broke out of Azkaban and had all those awful muggle posters."

He laughs at that. "I suppose I was pretty cool, wasn't I?"

Ginny rolls her eyes.

"Well, go on. What did you think of me back then?" he asks in his cheekiest voice.

"You were grumpy. And I hated your house." She pauses, tilting her head. "You made a cute dog, though."

He laughs loudly, then kisses her. "I'm glad you've changed your mind since then."

"Who says I have?" she asks, an eyebrow raised.

"Oh, my pride!" he cries, clutching his heart. "It's wounded!"

"I stand by everything I said." Her mouth twists up into a smirk. "But, does it help if I think you're cute not as a dog now too?"

"Marginally," he pouts.

She laughs, rolling over so she's propped up on her elbows, facing the ground. She starts tearing the grass in front of her to pieces.

"Sirius," she says after a moment, "why do you think we're doing this?"

"'This' as in…"

" _This_ , this whole thing. You and me."

"I — I wish I knew." He sighs. "I think… I think I've always been this way. Whether it was how I was born, or how I was raised… I don't know, but I've always made bad choices. Coped poorly. Done anything I could to feel too much or not at all. Hurt people I loved. I never start out wanting to do the wrong thing, but I always manage it somehow."

She considers this, staring at the ground. "I don't think I used to be like that, but maybe I am now. Since the war."

"War changes everyone."

"I don't want to hurt Harry, you know. He's the best, kindest, most incredible person I've ever known."

"Me too."

"I think I'm going to hurt him really badly." She sighs, pinching her eyes closed. "We both are."

"I think we already have, even if he doesn't know it yet."

"I don't think I can stop."

"I know I can't," Sirius says. He pats the space on the ground next to him. "Come here."

Ginny rolls over into his arms, and he holds her. They stay that way until clouds blow in, covering the sun, and it starts to rain.

* * *

"I really shouldn't be here," Ginny says. He feels her throat vibrate against his lips as she speaks, her neck arched back, her head hitting the back of his bedroom door.

"You're not wrong," he says, sliding a hand up the side of her shirt.

She takes his chin and pulls his mouth back to hers, locking him in a kiss that feels like honey and firewhisky: sweet and burning.

Tripping over each other's limbs, they stagger to the bed. His bed. She's never been in his room before, even though it's now been several months of increasingly frequent encounters.

The _wrongness_ of it feels less real every time. It's like… he has Ginny, the best, most interesting part of his life, and he has the rest of his life. Sirius has always been able to compartmentalize with the best of them. It's what's got him through Azkaban. Who knew that the skills he developed to survive prison would also come in handy to survive an illicit affair?

But even if he hadn't been able to emotionally separate her from the rest of his life, he's pretty sure he'd still be doing this. She's his new obsession, his new addiction. Better than firewhisky.

Being in his room seems like it should be a small thing, after all the lines they've already eagerly and recklessly crossed. But this is his private, intimate space.

More importantly, it's in Harry's home. Sirius may own it, but this is Harry's house as much as it is his, maybe more so. And he and Ginny are desecrating it while Harry is out of town for the weekend.

Things progress as they usually do: kissing, taking clothes off, battling between the desire for _more, right now_ , and the desire to slowly and methodically savour every inch of the beautiful witch in his bed.

The latter wins out for now, and he works his way over Ginny's body, trailing his lips over her torso, sucking and pinching at her breasts. He pauses when he gets to her thighs, opting instead to sit up and look at her while he touches her with his hands. He strokes his fingers lazily over the inside of her thigh, inching inwards towards the place he knows she wants to be touched.

She's lying back, watching him touch her. She's so fucking sexy. Young and fit and naturally gorgeous, but more than that, she's fun and fierce and hilarious and she gets him in a way that he's not sure if anyone ever has before.

And he wants her. In this moment, laid bare, he can admit it to himself. He's wanted her this whole time — wanted her body and her company. But now, seeing her in his room, in his bed, he wants more. More than secret kisses and stolen afternoons and sneaking around. All of her. He wants all of her.

It's maddening that he's _this close,_ and he can't have it. That he _does_ have it, she's here, he's touching her right now, but it's not real. It can never be real.

It sneaks up on him, the jealous rage, but it's instantly out of control.

Sirius slips his hand from her thigh and clutches covetously between her legs.

"Do you get this wet for Harry?" The indelicate words escape his lips, a side-effect of this new possessiveness that's taken over him.

Ginny's head snaps up to meet his gaze, and she stares at him for a moment, but she doesn't object to the question.

"No," she says.

"Just for me? Good girl." He slips two fingers inside her and strokes the spot she likes. She moans, arching her hips up and rubbing against his hand.

He bends down and flicks his tongue across her clit, just once. Then he stills and looks at her from between her legs.

"Does he lick your pussy as good as I do?"

"No," she groans out. "Fuck, Sirius, please."

A grin splits across his face as he dives in, giving her what she's asking for. He knows her body now, knows how to get her right where he wants her, so much better than he did the first time he did this at the dingy bar. How very far they've come.

She tangles a hand in his hair, keeping him close to her. When she comes undone, he feels it, quivering against his face and hand. He hears it too. Loudly.

"Does he ever make you come like that?"

"God, no," she whispers. "Never like that."

It's exactly what he wants to hear, sick as it is. The validation makes his skin tingle and his pulse quicken. His desire becomes ruinous, catastrophic.

He thrusts into her. He's aware that he hasn't given her much time to recover from her orgasm, but he can't wait. From the way she wraps her legs around his waist and pulls him closer, she doesn't seem to mind.

She feels amazing, like always. Warm and soft and wet and exhilarating beyond belief. But he can't quite lose himself to blissful oblivion like he wants to, like his body is desperately clamouring for.

Because Sirius doesn't want bliss, not really. He wants rage. He wants agony. He wants to beat at the unfairness of everything. He wants to be hurt.

He pulls out of her. "Turn over. On your knees," he says, panting.

He doesn't want to see her face.

She obliges, practically purring as she does so.

He thrusts back into her. Hard.

She gasps. "Did that hurt?"

"Yes," she breathes. He doesn't move. "Do it again."

He does it again.

And again and again and again. He fucks her punishingly hard, though he's not sure if it's her he's punishing, or himself.

" _Yes_ , Sirius, _fuck_. Don't stop."

He pulls her hair at one point. Grabs a fistful and twists it around his hand, yanking her head up.

He smacks her arse hard enough to leave a mark. He does it a few times. Each time, she squeals, but then she arches towards him, begging for more.

He leaves marks on her shoulder, from his teeth.

He grips her hips so hard she'll have finger-shaped bruises later.

While he's fucking her, he loses all sense of time. By the time he finally comes, bursting inside her with an anguished moan, he's exhausted.

He collapses into his bed, head hitting the pillow, instantly down from the jealousy-induced high. Ginny falls down next to him, breathing heavily, her expression unreadable.

"Are you okay?" he asks.

She answers him by crawling closer and tucking her face against his chest. She presses a kiss to his collarbone and he wraps his arms around her.

"I'm sorry. We probably should have talked about that first," he murmurs into her hair. "Something just — came over me, I guess."

"You don't have to apologize," she says. "I wasn't lying when I said I liked it. That was — amazing, actually." There's something strained in her voice, and Sirius realizes he feels something wet against his chest.

"Ginny?" He shifts so he can see her face. She's crying. "Fuck, I'm sorry. I'm so, so, so sorry." He holds her close again, rubbing a hand over her back.

"I'm really fine. I don't know why I'm crying." Even as she says it, her tears intensify, until she's sobbing openly and loudly against his chest.

"I'm sorry," he says again. "You're okay now. I've got you. You're safe. I'm so sorry."

He repeats those phrases over and over, not quite sure what he's saying most of the time, rubbing soothing circles over her back.

She quiets eventually. When she does, she lies still for a little while, just letting him hold her. When she's ready, she shifts off him and turns to face the ceiling, their shoulders still touching.

"I really am fine," she says. "I know it might not seem like it, but I'm not upset."

"I believe you."

"I was overwhelmed, maybe. That was… a lot. But it was amazing, Sirius, honestly."

"For me too," he says, pressing a kiss to the top of her head, "but I just want you to be alright."

They both stare at the ceiling.

"You make me feel really alive," she says eventually. "More than anything else does. When we fly bikes, when we have sex — this time especially, but every other time too — I don't know, but everything's… _more_. Even when we just talk for a minute, it's the highlight of my week. And you're so good to me. You don't judge me when I do terrible things. Probably because you're usually doing them with me." A grin flits across her face, then disappears. "If things were different, I'd probably tell you that I loved you right now."

"If things were different," he murmurs after a moment, "I'd say I love you, too."

"Sometimes, I think things could be different."

He props himself up on an elbow to look at her. "Different how?" he asks, trying not to sound too hopeful.

Ginny doesn't answer.

Instead, she looks away. "I should go," she says.

"I — What? You don't have to go. Can't we finish talking?"

"I'm not sure we have anything else to talk about, Sirius." She's out of bed, gathering her clothes.

He's left helpless, watching her leave yet again.

When she's almost dressed and halfway out the door, it bursts out of him. "Why? Ginny, why can't things be different? You don't have to stay with him. You can do anything you want! Leave him! Why won't you?"

She stares at him for a long moment. "Because Harry would never hurt me."

And then she's gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for reading! Reviews are always extremely appreciated.
> 
> I was quite nervous to post this chapter, as it contains both my favourite scene from this work and, separately, the one that was the most difficult to write and which I'm still not sure I got quite right.
> 
> As ever, please come join me on [tumblr](https://diana-skye.tumblr.com/). 
> 
> I wish you all an extremely happy and safe holiday if you are celebrating this week, and I'll see you back here on Tuesday for the final chapter!


	4. Chapter 4

_Harry would never hurt me._

Those five words circle around in his head for hours. He puzzles over them, endlessly dissecting what are surely imaginary layers of meaning.

He thinks about it while pacing around his room. He thinks about it while he burns his dinner and he keeps thinking about it while he orders takeaway to replace it. He thinks about it while he drinks his way through half a bottle of firewhisky and lies on his drawing room floor.

He gets up and goes to lie on his other drawing room floor, still thinking about it.

The obvious meaning is simple: Harry is a good person, he's good to her, she doesn't want to leave him.

But that can't be enough for her. It isn't enough for her, which is why she's with Sirius in the first place. And on its own, it's not a reason to stay with Harry, since Sirius would never hurt her either.

Except that he did. He made her cry. She left here with bruises.

Is that what she meant? Harry would never hurt her, and Sirius did?

That's probably what she meant. But if it is, why would she tell him she liked it? Why didn't she break up with him, tell him he was awful and that she was never coming back?

Unless, when she left, that was her breaking up with him? Was it? It couldn't be. She'd said she loved him, basically.

It gets late, and he's still lying on the floor.

He has to know what she meant. He stands up and marches towards the floo. He's had enough firewhisky that for a moment he truly believes that he should just show up at her flat and demand an answer. But he's forgotten her address, and by the time he finds it, he remembers that she has roommates and it's the middle of the night and showing up would make everything so much worse.

Thank goodness his memory is even worse than his impulse control.

Instead, he calls for his owl and pulls out a slip of parchment.

> _That's not a reason. I can't sleep if I don't know what you mean._

He doesn't sign it, or explain further. Once the owl leaves, his mind is clearer. He's asked and there's nothing else he can do. He finds it's quite peaceful, waiting for a response. He goes up to bed. She'll answer him, or she won't, and if she does it might not be until morning.

When he's settled and nearly asleep, his owl returns. He jumps to his window at lighting speed. So much for peaceful.

> _Harry would never hurt me, because he loves me, and he's a good person. He's gentle and careful and protective and he wants to build a future with me and sometimes that feels like a cage. He's too good for me, but I want to be good enough for him, because he deserves it. It's not his fault that the pure, perfect love he gives me makes me feel dead inside._
> 
> _You make me feel alive. You don't treat me like a fragile thing, in need of protection and care. You challenge me. You're not afraid to hurt me._
> 
> _And being with you does hurt me, all the time. It makes me feel rage and shame and agony, and Sirius, I'm covered in bruises and I cried again after I left and every time I see you my heart breaks more and more, but I think life is supposed to be like this. I don't think I want to be just fine, just content, safe and protected. It's not enough._
> 
> _Maybe there's something wrong with me that the only kind of love I want is the kind that hurts me. That can't be normal. But just because I can't leave him, that doesn't mean I can leave you. I need you._
> 
> _I know we can't go on like this forever. But I'm not ready for things to change yet._
> 
> _I'm sorry. Burn this letter._

She didn't sign it. He stares at her words, reads the letter three times. Then he casts an _incendio._

He watches it, helplessly, as it burns.

* * *

Sirius hears Harry come home while he's getting ready for work on Monday morning. He doesn't think he'll be able to look his godson in the eye ever again after the disgusting things he said about him the other night.

But when he gets downstairs and Harry's sitting at the kitchen table, nursing a mug of coffee, it's surprisingly easy. He's just Harry, just like he's always been, looking tired but happy after his weekend of auror training exercises.

"Morning Sirius," he says, yawning. "You off already?"

"Nah, I can sit for a minute." He wasn't planning to, but he doesn't actually need to open the shop this early. He grabs a coffee of his own and sits down.

"I feel like I've hardly seen you lately," Harry says. "Busy at work?"

"Fairly. Not as busy as you, I don't think."

Harry laughs. "That's true, I have been working hard. But I think I could make detective by the end of the year if I keep at it."

A smile floats across Sirius's face. "That's great. Your parents would be so proud of you."

"I hope so," Harry says, looking into his coffee. After a moment, he looks up, a strange twinkle in his eye. "So, what else is new with you?"

"Nothing much," Sirius lies. "Why?"

"No reason, really. You just seem different. Happier, maybe. Or, lighter? I was sort of wondering… if you might be seeing somebody?"

He contemplates how best to tell this particular lie.

"I — Well, okay, sort of. It's new," he says carefully, "but I like her. I don't want to talk about it too much yet."

Harry grins broadly. "I knew it! Hermione always says I never notice anything, but I totally do. What's she like?"

"She's, um, great. Really fun and cool and kind of intense." Sirius smiles, in spite of himself. "She's… a lot younger than me."

"Oh, well, that makes sense."

"Does it?"

"Well, sure. No offence, but you're not the most grown-up yourself. It's not your fault, you lost a lot of years, but…"

"Huh." That does make sense.

"Well, I'm happy for you, mate," Harry says, standing up. "Don't keep it a secret too long though, yeah? I think this could be really great." He claps Sirius on the shoulder as he heads out of the room.

The guilt, always a buzz in the back of his mind, becomes a sharp twist to his heart. There is no version of this that ends without Harry getting hurt. There may not be a way for this to end with his relationship with Harry intact, but he has to try to save what he can.

He's been tearing himself in two, for months now. Ginny. Harry. One version of his life, and the other. Compartmentalization only goes so far.

Ginny was right when she said they can't go on like this forever. He has to chose: One version of his life, one half of himself, or the other.

A few minutes ago, Sirius said that James and Lily would be proud of Harry. He'd meant it. They would be so immensely proud of their son.

They would not be proud of Sirius.

He knows what he needs to do. If he's honest, he's known it all along.

* * *

But first, Sirius needs to go to work, because it's Monday and he should be open already.

When he gets to his shop, he has a steady stream of customers for most of the morning. Two maintenance requests, a balding man who will never buy a bike but asks a million questions as if he will, and his young cousin Draco, who already has a bike, but seems to be vaguely considering getting a second, more expensive one.

Sirius has never been so fidgety. He has to do it today, or he never will.

He's practically tapping his foot, he's so impatient. He paces the floor, speaks too fast, bites the inside of his lip.

Finally, at exactly noon, he has a moment. He know it's noon because he can't stop looking at the fucking clock.

He pulls out a quill and writes to Ginny. He asks her if she can come by his shop today and says it's important. He sends his owl off.

Within minutes, he's watching her materialize outside the front window. When she comes in, he turns the sign on his shop door to 'closed' and leads her back to his office.

"Sirius, what are you doing?" she says. "I know we haven't talked in a couple of days and we left things on a pretty intense note, but I meant everything I said, so I'm not sure—"

He interrupts by kissing her. He holds her face in both his hands and drags the kiss out as long as he can, trying to memorize the feel of her lips against his.

"Ginny," he says, still cradling her face in his hands. "I love you."

"Sirius…" She steps back.

"I just wanted you to hear me say it once, for real. Because this is over."

"Sirius," she says again, with a sharp intake of breath.

"I talked to Harry this morning."

"What?" Her eyes go wide.

"I didn't tell him anything," he says hurriedly. "But I noticed him. For the first time in a while, I think. I remembered how important he is to me and I — I thought about James. Even if I was okay with hurting Harry and ruining my relationship with him — which I'm not, or I don't know maybe I am, I've sure been acting like it — I can't do this to James' son. I promised him and Lily before they died that I'd take care of Harry no matter what. I missed so much and I failed so many times, but that's over. I have to grow up sometime, and this is it. I love you, but this is it."

His speech echoes around the office. The room feels cramped and hot.

"Okay," is all she says at first, barely above a whisper. Then, hanging her head: "I'm sorry I ever put you in that position. It was so selfish of me. I'm just awful."

"Hey, no," he says. "You didn't make me do anything. And you're not awful. I read your letter, I know how trapped you feel. I get why you did everything you did and I won't ever judge you for it. Not ever."

There's a pause, and Ginny looks dismayed but says nothing.

"Listen," he says, finding himself on a speech-making roll, "I've never played the I'm-older-than-you card before, but I feel like I have to now. I don't want you to be me in twenty years. I want you to be happy, and more than that, I want you to be whole. I don't want you heart or your soul or whatever to be as broken as mine is. I'm not going to give you real advice, because I don't know a damn thing, but you need to change something about the way you're living your life and you need to do it soon." He heaves in a breath, winded from the effort of his impassioned speech. One more thing: "And, _promise me_ you'll end it with him, soon. You deserve to feel alive."

She nods, wetness pooling at the corners of her eyes. She blinks it away.

He steps forward and wraps his arms around her, unable to resist the pitiable brokenness in the way she's staring at the spot of floor next to his shoes.

"I'll miss you," she murmurs against his ear.

"Me too."

She steps away from him and nods again, a tight smile pulling at her lips. "I should go, then."

"Yeah."

She moves toward the door, and she's standing in front of it, about to open it, when she turns back. "I love you too, you know."

He nods.

She turns to leave again, then stops. "That wasn't fair, before. You knew that was our last kiss and I didn't."

She grabs him by the shirt and pulls him towards her. They melt into each other, kissing desperately, like they're dying.

In a way, they are.

He lets his hand tangle in her hair and she grips the back of his neck and he's letting this go on way too long and —

"Sirius! Are you here? Your front door's —" The office door flies open and he and Ginny jump apart, not quite fast enough.

It's George Weasley.

His mouth opens and closes several times. "I'll come back later, then."

He turns on his heel and marches swiftly out of the shop.

"Fuck," Ginny says. "Fuck! I'll go after him, I'll explain."

She runs. Sirius is left behind, again.

* * *

He paces around his closed shop for several hours. He doesn't hear from Ginny, or anyone. It's not like he can stay here forever, but he can't go home either. He can't go home ever again. The patch of bravery he experienced earlier today has vanished, and in it's place is nothing but the usual cowardice.

How could this have happened? It was over! He did the right thing, for once in his fucking life.

And yet, somehow, he can't go home.

He could go to Hogwarts, get Hagrid to lend him Buckbeak, go live in a cave somewhere. Eat rats. He did it once, he could do it again. It's genuinely less painful to think about than the alternative.

Visions pass through his head of Harry packing his things, moving out, never talking to Sirius again. He's been the biggest goddamn idiot on the planet and the most selfish jerk.

He wonders how he got here. Where did he go wrong? Was this his destiny? To blow up his life, over and over again, until the end of time? To get his best friend killed, to get sent to prison, to almost die so many times he's lost count, to drive the only person who matters to him away by having an affair with his girlfriend? To fall in love with said girlfriend, then break her heart - and his own - trying to do the right thing, only to have it explode in his face and make everything worse?

Fuck, he wants a drink.

He wishes he kept firewhisky in his office. He doesn't; he knows himself well enough to know that if he made it too easy to drink at work, it would end in disaster.

About an hour after he would normally end his work day, Sirius sighs. He can't take this waiting anymore. Also, he has firewhisky at home and he desperately needs a drink, or several. He steps out into the street and apparates to the front steps of Grimmauld place.

The house is quiet when he arrives. He usually loves coming home to a quiet house. It reminds him that it's his now — no secret meetings, no screaming portrait of his mother, no cranky elves. Just him and Harry.

Soon, maybe just him.

Today, the quiet feels ominous, heavy. He wanders through the house, peeking into various rooms as he goes. No one in the first drawing room. No one in the second drawing room.

"What took you so long?" Sirius jumps.

It's Ginny, standing behind him in the hall outside the kitchen.

"Is Harry here? What happened with George? Why didn't you send an owl?" His questions outpace his brain.

"He's not here. I've been here for a while, so he's probably at work. And I don't know, I kept expecting you to come home!"

"Sorry. But what happened with George?" he asks again.

She sighs. "Come sit down, maybe."

He follows her through to the kitchen and they sit on opposite sides of the table, Sirius's leg bouncing in anticipation. The coffee mugs he and Harry both left abandoned on the table this morning rattle in time with his leg.

"It took me ages to catch up with him, but I told him everything. All about the last few months and how it's over and that what he saw today was goodbye, but… He said whether it's over or not doesn't matter. He's right, of course." She's been staring at her hands, fidgeting on the table, but now she looks up. "He's given me three days. If I — If we don't tell Harry what happened, George will."

"Fuck," Sirius breathes. He summons a bottle of firewhisky.

"Yeah."

"Fuck," he says again. It's the closest thing he has to a coherent thought on the matter. He summons a glass and pours a generous portion. He drinks it, then pours another.

"So, I mean, I guess I'll talk to Harry when he gets home tonight. You can stay, if you want — or maybe it should just be me? Both of us might be overwhelming."

"How are you so calm about this?" He feels like he's going to pass out and she's talking like they're making plans for dinner.

"I don't know, Sirius! Maybe because I've been here alone all day thinking about it!"

"Well, you didn't have to be. You could have found me," he snaps.

"It doesn't matter. The situation is what it is, and I've accepted it," she declares. "It will suck, but eventually this will all be over. And this isn't exactly the war. No one will die."

He can't believe what he's hearing.

"God, this has always been easier for you hasn't it?" he snarls. "You're going to be fine. All you'll lose is what, a boyfriend? I'm going to lose my family!"

"Oh, please," she scoffs. "You knew the risks. I didn't make you do anything."

"But you did! You started all of this! You showed up at my bar and you kissed me. You came to me at the wedding and you're the one who apparated us to your damn bedroom. You're the one who kept showing up at my work!"

"Right, and you told me to go home, did you? Pushed me off?" She shakes her head. "I can't believe you're doing this right now."

Sirius stands, walks a circle around his chair, and sits back down.

"I always ruin everything," he whispers.

Ginny drums her fingers on the table top. It strikes a nerve.

Sirius sends Harry's leftover coffee mug to the ground with a brush of his forearm. There is a satisfying crash as it cracks in half.

He takes his own leftover mug and tosses it against the wall. It shatters into a hundred fragments, the pieces skittering across the floor.

Ginny just looks at him with a raised eyebrow. "That's helpful."

"Fuck off," he mutters, sinking back down in his chair, his temper deflating as quickly as it arose. His head is a mess, a jumble of cracked moods and broken thoughts.

He swallows the rest of his drink and pours a third.

"You know he's my family, too," she says quietly. "I'm not just breaking up with a boyfriend. And if you don't think every single one of our friends is going to take his side, then…" Her voice shakes and she heaves in a breath. "I just have to believe that they love me enough to forgive me, eventually. Even if Harry never does. I tried so hard to never break his heart."

She bites her lip, and screws up her face like she's trying to hold back tears. Then she takes another deep breath, shakes her head and carries on.

"But there's nothing we can do about that now. George knows and Harry has to too. So. I asked you earlier if you wanted to stay. What do you think — tell him together, or just me?"

They don't have time to discuss it further.

The floo roars to life and Sirius looks at Ginny in the last moments before Harry steps through into the kitchen. She takes a shaky breath.

"Together," Sirius says, squeezing her hand under the table.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading.
> 
> This story means a lot to me, and I hope it’s meant something to one or two of you as well .
> 
> As ever, if you have thoughts/feelings/questions/want to yell at me about the ending, I’m available in comments and on [tumblr.](https://diana-skye.tumblr.com/)


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